Story Time
by bking4
Summary: Beth just wants a quiet night in. With the Wizarding War looming large, is a single night of domestic bliss with her husband and daughter too much to ask for?


Beth hummed a tune to herself while she twirled her wand in a widdershins spiral, in and out and in. The dishes did themselves, bouncing along to her tune. She could hear the sounds of her husband and her daughter playing out in the living room; her heart warmed with every giggle she heard. With the world outside getting more frightening, people she grew up with disappearing at the drop of her hat, she basked in her own little paradise within the walls of their small flat.

"Wo ho ho!" She heard her husband exclaim. "Beth, come look!" The dishes gently drifted back into the soapy sink as she sauntered out to see her family. Her husband was floating close to the ground, splayed out like a seeker going in for a deep dive. Abigail, her precious little girl, was clapping and giggling up a storm.

She hated to be the stick in the mud, but self-levitation wasn't safe, which John good and well knew! "Get down, please? I don't want you to hurt yourself!"

She needed her home to be safe. Out there she was only "mudblood" with curled lip and spit on the ground. John was "Mr. Johnathan Bulstrode," pureblood of good breeding. Their flat was supposed to be a shelter against the storm.

He smirked at her, that coy little smirk that had tempted her into more than one abandoned classroom back at Hogwarts. "Can't, love. I'm not doing it."

Her eyes turned to her still laughing daughter, and pride rushed through her like a geyser. She scooped her up in a giant hug. "Oh, who's my good little girl! Accidental magic, so early?"

"Dadda up! Dadda up!"

"Yes, yes, Daddy went up!" Beth cooed.

"She's certain to be a strong witch! First accidental magic a happy thought, always a good sign. That's what my mother used to say. I think she deserves a treat tonight! Perhaps a bedtime story?"

"Stowwy! Stowwy!"

Beth trailed behind them as her wonderful husband scooped up their bright little girl and rocked her to her room. He swaddled her up in her bed and settled himself upon the edge. Abigail leaned up against the door jamb, excited to hear another wizarding bedtime story.

"This is the first story my grandmother ever told me, back when I was just a wee lad. She showed me pictures just like these." John flicked up a few shiny images to go along with his story, spectral illusions to delight their little Abigail.

"Once up on a time, a long time ago, so long ago that Hogwarts was only a thought tumbling about in Godric Gryffindor's wrinkly old hat, there was a beautiful, clever young witch. She lived high up on a hill, overlooking a peaceful little town. She was known for having the most beautiful blonde hair that anyone had ever seen. Everyone in the town came to her for help with and she never turned anyone away."

Jonathan waved his wand around in big, looping arcs that matched his exaggerated voice, then popped a kiss right on Abigail's forehead and whispered "Boop!"

"Boop!" Abigail clapped back.

"She loved magic, and her villagers, that's true. But the one thing she really loved, that she was best at in all the village, that was her favorite thing in the entire world more than anything else?"

Abigail looked up at him with wet, gleaming eyes, anxious for the answer.

"Butter." John nodded his head overdramatically.

"Dadda no! Princess, no butter!"

"Yes, butter! She was the butter princess! She made the most wonderful butter."

Beth held her breath. What story was this? It sounded like one she vaguely remembered from her youth, back when her grandfather had tried to warn her off against witches and magic. Their relationship hadn't ended well.

"Every week, she'd take one lock of her magic hair and feed it to her big, friendly cow. Then the milk would turn into butter that looked just as perfect as her hair, silky and golden. She'd bring her butter to the market every week. Because she used magic to make it, she could sell it for cheap! She was so loved by everybody because her magic butter tasted the best and lasted the longest and everybody loved it.

"But there was a nasty muggle lady who had been making butter for a long, long time. She had dirty brown hair, knotted up on her head and mean, squinty eyes. She shouted all the time at everyone about every little thing. Her butter was even nastier than she was, and so, so expensive! She hated the pretty butter princess-witch. One day, the muggle creeped right up onto the hill and into the witch's house, and hid herself away to spy on our witch!"

Abigail's eyes glistened in fear and heartbreak for the injustice she couldn't quite articulate, and Beth's eyes glistened too, but the stinging in her eyes was due to an entirely different unfairness. Why did it turn her heart icy to see her daughter quiver in fear beneath her covers at that particularly scary muggle? Was it her imagination, or did that spectral image look just a bit too much like her mother, who she knew John wasn't fond of?

"The mean, old, muggle lady watched our princess-witch make her butter, and was dismayed to find that there wasn't anything gross or weird about it. She even stole a little bit and tasted it! She was so mad when it tasted better than her own lumpy butter. She went down into the town and started spreading lies about the witch. She said-."

"A goblin made it for her!" Beth interjected. Yes, she knew this story, but she knew the muggle telling of it. She had a flashback to the nightmares she had for weeks after her grandfather told it to her. A sneering old witch with a dead man's hand, stolen fresh a churchyard, used to stir the butter. She felt her old fear fester in her chest like a closed, aching wound; terrified that she'd grow up into a witch like the story and be run out of every town she ever lived in, forever alone and spiteful. She was sure the magical version wouldn't treat the muggles any better. It seemed she wouldn't be a fan of either version.

Beth continued her own ending to the story, breathing quickly as she invented something on the fly. "But the beautiful witch went down and said sorry to the muggle and they became the best of friends. Now, who'd like a song?" She cracked her wand out like a whip and ignored the look on John's face as the tune she was humming earlier that evening wafted from everywhere and nowhere all throughout the room.

"Beth?" He whispered, so quiet Abigail surely couldn't hear.

"Not in the house, John. Not a story like that. Not these days."

He paused for a moment, forehead crinkled until suddenly his eyes went wide. "Hun, I'm-"

"I know, it's just -."

"Mummy?" Abigail piped up.

"Yes, love. _Train whistle blowin' makes a sleepy noise, underneath the blankets for all the girls and boys._"


End file.
